Lockdown has been tough on us all and self medication is prevalent. It doesn’t solve any problems. In fact it probably amplifies them but when difficult emotions arise, it’s easy to reach for the bar/bottle/bag (delete as appropriate) in the search for healing, for oblivion.

There’s a saying that goes “You become your thoughts”. If this is true I’m about to turn into an Easter egg. I’m quite an obsessive person and I have an addictive streak to my personality. I used to be addictively obsessed with music. I still am to some extent but since I have very little musical work at the moment, I’m now addictively obsessed about food. It’s the next best thing! Food never used to fill my thoughts but now, if I’m not mind-full, I devour every single easter egg. In my mind, mind you. I’m sitting there with a big pile of them, all the packaging ripped off, the steely cool colourful foil peeled away from the beautiful big brown embossed milky sickly sweet chocolate ovals. It’s heavenly and I can’t stop and I don’t have to stop because I don’t feel sick. I can eat as many eggs as I want and I don’t gain weight. In fact, the chocolate HEALS me!!! Haha, if only! A vivid imagination is an asset and it’s a shame not to use it as often as possible.

I have a very healthy lifestyle and I exercise in some shape or form every day. 90% of my food is super healthy but food has become the easiest way I can self medicate because from Monday to Wednesday I’m surrounded by foods I would never usually entertain and I’m not allowed to eat them. I believe that’s the key right there. I don’t even like sweet chocolate but if I’m on one, I can guzzle ridiculous quantities, ideally until I feel sick. That takes rather a lot of chocolate and I’m more than capable!

Chatting with one of the regulars last night, whose medication of choice is gin, we came to the conclusion that we don’t hate ourselves but we’re not that enamoured with life right now.

There’s nothing here for me without playing work. In times of COVID with masks and other restrictions that prevent expression, this job sucks the breath of life out of me. I can’t seem to take a step in the right direction. I can do no right.

It’s Wednesday evening after 3 tough emotional shifts and I want to binge. I want as much food as I can stuff in my face and the consequences don’t bother me. I’ve just had an hour long conversation with myself debating why a binge isn’t the best way to express my feelings and that swallowing them won’t help, but it’s useless. I want to feel full and numb. I hate the fact I can’t stick up for myself at work, that I can’t find my words or that the words (and actions) I find would get me in the shit. I hate that I can’t share my frustration at the shambolic state my memory is in. I ask myself how the fuck I managed to memorise so much music not so long ago. I was capable of retaining reams of notes and volumes of information, yet now my short term memory is virtually non existent. I can’t tell you what the podcast I just listened to was about. I made a few errors of judgement at work today too and that worries me. Nothing too serious but worrying nonetheless. I don’t trust myself. I don’t recognise myself. I have no idea who I am!

Most of the time I’m pathetically apathetic. I think that’s more uncomfortable than being super emotional.

I’d like to approach this week with curiosity and a lightness of touch. Letting go helps.

From Monday evening, tinnitus sets in, a disconcerting clicking in my right ear. It’s so urgent that it feels muscular and makes me wonder if I’ve torn something in my shoulder. By Thursday morning it’s gone after a quiet day away from it all with only my online students and Llwyd to chew my ear.

She meows very loudly since she became deaf. My beautiful 17 year old cat has taken a turn for the worse this week. She woke me up in the early hours Thursday morning having a funny turn. She’s had them a couple of times in the past couple of months. She seems to fall off whichever chair she’s sleeping on and staggers about drunkenly for a few seconds until she comes round. It can be quite alarming and today’s episode was no exception. I was in the kitchen when I heard her fall off the armchair in the living room and I heard thumping noises. There she was, repeatedly rolling over, convulsively performing sideways somersaults. Her seizures subsided and she came to gradually, huffing and puffing, looking as surprised as me. I’ve booked an appointment for her to see the vet on Tuesday. I want to make sure she isn’t suffering or in pain. Let’s hope she’s on a roll in a good way.